2 May 2023 2:18 pm
[...please jeeeeeezus, more doug casey thinking, less republic#nt/democ#nt 'thinking']...."...Let me re-emphasize that I’m not encouraging drug use. Some cloud the mind, others clear it. It’s up to you (or should be) to decide what you need or want, what’s good or bad. There are many hundreds of recreational drugs, with widely differing effects. Insofar as recreational drugs present a problem, it arises from overuse, which is hard to define and arbitrary. And can be true of absolutely anything.
People can become addicted to most anything—food, sugar, alcohol, gambling, sleep, sex—you name it. It’s not good when you do too much of absolutely anything. One thing is for sure: You take personal responsibility away from people, they become more, not less, irresponsible.
The so-called “drug problem” is solely due to the fact that recreational drugs are illegal.
Alcohol provides the classic example. Alcohol has been, by far, the most abused substance in the US throughout its history. But the enactment of Prohibition in 1920 not only made abuse worse (for a number of reasons), but created a crime wave, and essentially created the Cosa Nostra. Making a product illegal turns both users and suppliers into criminals, and only makes bluenoses and busybodies happy.
Because illegality makes any product vastly more expensive than it would be in a free market, some users resort to crime to finance their habits. Because of the risks and artificially reduced supply, the profits to the suppliers are necessarily huge—not the simple businessman’s returns to be had from legal products.
Just as Prohibition of the ’20s turned the Mafia from a small underground group of thugs into big business, the War on Drugs has done precisely the same thing for drug dealers. And is, by far, the major cause of corruption in law enforcement. It’s completely insane and totally counterproductive..."
#brain-launderedrepublic#nt/democ#ntauthoritardians